Sex in Public: “I’m cynical about love.”

Since childhood the word “love” has borne a satirical, false impression in my mind. I’ve never really been heartbroken—I’ve never really been in love—and yet that word, love, doesn’t impress me much. Is that the despair or lucid thinking?

I think love is wonderful in the grand scheme of things: love for mankind, love for your family, love for your neighbor, love even for those who hate you. I applaud grand love. I revel in grand love. Grand love is my religion.

But the idea of looking at someone in the eye and saying the words “I love you” and meaning it makes me laugh embarrassedly, like I’m telling a rather silly joke.

The idea of being in love seems like a fantastical unreality. I chalk it right up there with my dreams of magic, flying, and genies in lamps. It’s a pretty little falsehood.

It’s not as if I don’t believe in love at all—as easy as it would be to pretend that, that would be a foolish and naïve assumption. Love is all around. Most people born in the world are direct creations of love. But it’s a rare blessing if you think about it. What is love but a curious chemical mix of attraction and fascination and admiration?

Frankly, I’d like nothing more than to go off my own way and find a lover that will make me recant every dour statement I’ve made against love in my life time. But I’ve grown tired having to face the inevitable disappointment and scorn looking at me.

And so now I don’t feel delight when I speak to a guy; I feel a dullness when kisses suck me into a void of boredom and the barest of toleration. There are too many interesting things in the world to settle for mediocrity—all the days of my life are meant to be wonderful. And love is like a time bomb holding me back.

Think what you like of me—frigid, cold, in desperate need of a therapist. Whatever rationalizes my way of thinking for you. I’m just being honest as I can be on a subject that is very hard to be honest about.

— Kim, New Jersey

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Sex in Public is an ongoing storytelling series devoted to uniting people through vulnerable & intimate admissions of sexuality, self-love, & body image.